Henry Dubroff

With a new year just getting under way, I thought I would exercise my editor’s privilege and introduce some of our new editorial calendar concepts for 2017.

After a fine start in 2016, we’re bringing back the Central Coast Innovation Awards with its “Startup Village” of university and community entrepreneurs. We’re also streamlining our categories for our February special report and we’ll be introducing a “Look Back” award that will honor one of our past winners.

And, I’m delighted to announce that UC Santa Barbara professor John Bowers will accept our 2nd annual Spirit of Innovation award at our reception at Bacara on the evening of March 16. Bowers, a serial entrepreneur, sold his company, Aurrion, last year to Juniper Networks for a reported $165 million. He also won the Photonics Prize from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

On April 13, our Top 50 Women in Business reception at the Deckers Outdoor Rotunda in Goleta will feature CSU Channel Islands President Erika Beck as our keynote speaker. Beck arrived at CSUCI this year and is just the second president in CSUCI history. She is also the first woman to lead a public, four-year university on the Central Coast.

Our 101 One Hundred reception on the evening of May 18 at the Four Seasons Santa Barbara Biltmore will honor Women’s Economic Ventures founder Marsha Bailey, who will be inducted into our Business Hall of Fame. And we’ll be introducing the inaugural list of Central Coast Best Places to Work, with special recognition for our top companies.

To round out the first half of the year, our annual Champions in Health Care awards luncheon on June 22 will introduce Eduardo Cetlin of the Amgen Foundation as keynote speaker. Our Champions panel will focus on aging and Alzheimer’s.

Looking toward the second half of the year, we have a few additional highlights.

• The Business Times will be presenting its inaugural Latino Business Awards scholarship winner on July 20 at the Crowne Plaza Ventura Beach. We’ve been working closely with the Ventura County Community Foundation to identify our first-ever award winner as part of our Latino Business Awards program; the scholarship is funded by ticket proceeds and grants from previous winners.

• Our Aug. 24 Spirit of Small Business Awards luncheon at Fess Parker’s Doubletree by Hilton will be the 15th year of a unique partnership between Pacific Coast Business Times and the Los Angeles District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. We will be honoring more than 100 past winners of the Spirit awards.

• Our longest-running event, 40 under 40, will return for its 17th year with a gala dinner at the Topa Tower Club and this year’s winners will be joining 640 past honorees who now comprise the next generation of corporate and community leadership in the Tri-Counties.

• We’ll wrap up our event calendar with Top 50 Fastest -Growing Companies, whose Oct. 19 evening program moves to a perfect location — the brand new MOXI Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation on Santa Barbara’s waterfront.

You can find out more on our web site at www.pacbiztimes.com but, for a more personal touch, please contact Special Reports Editor Chris Officer for information about nominations and nomination deadlines. For advertising and sponsorship, please reach out to Publisher Linda le Brock at llebrock@pacbiztimes.com.

I look forward to seeing you at one of our programs in the New Year.

• Reach Editor Henry Dubroff at hdubroff@pacbiztimes.com.